1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a capping sheet and liquid jet apparatus.
2. Related Art
Inkjet printers (hereinafter simply referred to as the “printer(s)”) have been widely known as liquid jet apparatus for ejecting liquid from their liquid jet heads onto a target. This type of printers has a problem in that evaporation of ink solvents through the nozzles of their liquid-jet recording head increases ink viscosity and solidifies the ink, and also in that dust cling to the nozzles and bubbles get trapped in the ink. All of these cause nozzle clogging, resulting in print defects.
To address this problem, typical printers have a boxy capping material to seal their recording head in a resting state to prevent ink in the nozzles from drying. The capping material is typically placed in a non-printing area and provides a capping operation by horizontally moving the recording head from a printing position to an area where the capping material is placed. While the capping material seals the head, the space defined by the capping material and head (nozzle surface) is kept wet to prevent ink in the nozzles from drying.
In recent years, printers including a full-line head have been developed for high-speed printing. The head is a large recording head with nozzles arrayed, to the full width of a printing area, in a direction perpendicular to another direction in which a recording medium is fed. With this type of printers, however, it is troublesome to move the heavy recording head to the area where the cap material is placed (non-printing area) to provide the capping operation.
A printer that can solve this problem has been developed. JP-A-2005-53119 is an example of related art. In this type of printer, a capping material forms a unit with a capping-material carrying belt arranged along the circumference of a paper-carrying belt. The capping material is usually placed under the paper-carrying belt. To provide the capping operation, the paper-carrying belt is lowered, and thereafter the capping material is moved by the capping-material carrying belt to a position facing the nozzle surface of the recording head.
The paper-carrying belt is then lifted to press the capping-material carrying belt onto the recording head side, whereby the capping material on the capping-material carrying belt is pressed onto the nozzle surface of the head. This structure therefore provides the capping operation without moving the head from the printing area.
The related-art printer, however, involves the following problems. Since the capping material forms a unit with the capping-material carrying belt, it is troublesome to clean or replace an ink-contaminated capping material. In addition, the mechanism to lift and lower the paper-carrying belt makes the whole structure complicated. Furthermore, the mechanism to lift the paper carrying belt to press the capping-material carrying belt and the capping material thereon onto the nozzle surface of the head would cause undesirable flexure of the paper carrying belt. If the paper-carrying belt has a tendency of such flexure, accuracy in carrying paper (e.g., the distance between the paper and head) can lower.